Science Partnership for Global Change Education
Solution
Rising Air Temperatures
While there is no quick fix to the multitude of climate change impacts, there are an amazing array of ideas being explored to help us adapt to the changes that climate change brings and mitigate future impacts. We hope this section is a beacon of hope within a tough subject.
Bringing climate change issues into your classroom can be daunting since there are so many devastating ways we are affected. Wherever we look, the news about climate and weather is dire and catastrophic. Highlighting solutions and actions we can take as individuals or as a society helps change the narrative and emotions about climate change.
Our goal in this section is to provide inspiration and hope for ourselves and our students. We can solve this! And here are some things that are being done or some amazing ideas that are being researched. We hope you share these ideas with your student to empower them to be part of the solution.
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Sales Force Park in downtown San Francisco, CA
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Check It Out In This Video:
Mitigating Urban Heat Island Effects
Urban areas with human-made structures heat up more, faster, and cool down slower than natural landscapes. Changing urban landscapes to include vegetation and tree cover by creating more parks or green rooftops is a simple, feasible solution to reducing the heat common in urban areas. There are great examples of this urban greening effort seen around the world, most recently in San Francisco above the Sales Force Transit Center. The structure houses commuter buses from around the Bay Area as well as provides 5.4 acres of cooling green space on its roof. It’s innovative design transforms a transportation hub (for 100,000 passengers a day) into a urban park environment that cools the urban core and provides a gathering place for the community.
Mitigating Urban Heat Island Effects
These main EPA strategies for reducing the urban heat island effect can easily be scaled to apply to a school campus or surrounding community.
1)increasing tree and vegetative cover to provide shade and cooling through evapotranspiration.
2)installing green roofs that include vegetative cover. Plants on a rooftop reduces temperatures of the roof surface
3)Installing reflective roofs that reduce roof temperatures and lower energy demand from air conditioning.
4)using cool (permeable) pavements (either reflective or permeable) that will also reduce stormwater runoff.
For more info visit EPA site
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